As we watch Haiti deteriorate...it's hard to watch the human misery and suffering of innocent people.
It's also hard to watch Bill Clinton stand on the ground down there and say that the USA is going to help rebuild this destroyed nation with reinforced concrete, no less.
Hey Bill....who is going to loan us the money so that we can buy the Haitians reinforced concrete and pay to send workers down there to rebuild the entire infrastructure of Haiti?
In today's Wall Street Journal, there is an article by a doctor who is in Haiti working with Doctors Without Borders. The scenes that she describes are simply impossible to imagine as we all sit in our living rooms, eating pizza and watching TV.
I see some people and can't believe they are alive. They have extreme crush injuries, partial amputations, and open fractures. A mother helped me bandage her infant, whose left hand was gone. It took an hour, but once the baby was bandaged, she was calmer. I can't imagine what the mother is going through. I changed the bandages on a little girl and it took me a while to see the wound, but part of her skull was missing. She needs immediate reconstructive surgery.
A young man, about 23, had a traumatic crush injury. He was looking all right, young and strong, but his leg was dead and had to come off. If you can remove gangrenous limbs, you can save people. But we couldn't, and the next day he died of sepsis. Another woman seemed to be doing well—she was talking—and I was optimistic to the point of reassuring her family. But within minutes she collapsed. We tried to resuscitate her but she died, maybe from a huge clot. I don't have X-rays, so I don't know.
These are the immediate things she is seeing....but the long term repercussions of what is coming to this desolate country is simply staggering.
The thing is, after surgery it's not like patients can go home. Many have no homes to go back to. And they will need a lot of follow-up care, wound debridements (the removal of dead or infected tissue), dressing changes, infection and pain control. A lot of amputees and the paralyzed will need lifelong care.
I know it's not easy for amputees anywhere, but Port-au-Prince is not a flat place and getting around is tough. One woman I am caring for is paraplegic. It is going to be really hard on her and her family. They will have to take care of her for the rest of her life. There are countless others in similar situations.
And this just describes the health end of things. Let's ask what happens to a whole generation of children who have no chance to go to school...because the schools and teachers are all gone?
The article concludes with this paragraph;
The destruction here is enormous. Almost every school I have seen since last Tuesday has collapsed. The same thing for markets, public structures and homes. The health infrastructure was weak before the earthquake, and neglected by international donors, but no public-health system could have prepared for a disaster like this. Rebuilding this city will take years.
Read it here; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575010943465122052.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn
Now ask yourselves one final question....what will the world do when the Holy Spirit is withdrawn at the rapture....and the USA crumbles as millions of it's citizens vanish to meet the Lord in the clouds? Who will send the doctors, the ships, the military police, the medicine?
Who will buy the reinforced concrete?